PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGliOES 



5 17 



affinities between the Lendu and the Mbuba languages and any other 

 well-known group of African tongues. On the whole, perhaps, they are 

 more connected with the Madi group than any other. Physically speaking, 

 both tribes offer some diversity of type. Amongst the Lendu one 

 occasionally sees individuals with almost Hamitic physiognomy, due, no 

 doubt, to mixture with the Banyoro on the opposite side of the Albert 

 Nyanza. Others, again, among the Lendu offer a physical type resembling 

 the Pygmies and the Banande. There is considerable correspondence in 

 body measurements between the Lendu people and the Pygmy-Prognathous 

 group. On the whole, however, the faces met with amongst the Lendu 



are more pleasing than among the other forest tribes. The Lendu inhabit 

 the country which lies to the west of the southern half of Lake Allien. 

 This country is mainly grassy upland, but part of it where the land slopes 

 towards the Congo basin is covered with dense forest, and in many of their 

 affinities, physical and ethnological, the Lendu are more closely allied to 

 the forest tribes than to the people of the Nile Valley. Their neighbours 

 in this direction are the Alulu, or Alum, who will be treated of in that 

 section of the book dealing with the Nilotic Negroes. To the south the 

 Lendu go by the name of " Lega," or " Balega." Why this name should lie 

 given to or assumed by them in the Upper Semliki Valley I have not been 

 able to ascertain. It is the name belonging to a tribe of Bantu-speaking 



